Russia's Middle East Policy

Alexey Vasiliev

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138563605
• eBook ISBN: 9781351348867
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Regional Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

This extraordinary book charts the development of Russia's relations with the Middle East from the 1950s to the present. It covers both high and low points – the closeness to Nasser's Egypt, followed by reversal; the successful invasion of Afghanistan which later turned into a disaster; the changing relationship with Israel which was at some time surprisingly close; the relationship with Syria, which continues to be of huge significance; and much more. Written by one of Russia's leading Arabists who was himself involved in the formation and implementation of policy, the book is engagingly written, extremely insightful, telling us things which only the author is in a position to tell us, and remarkably frank, not sparing senior Soviet and Russian figures from criticism. The book includes material based on the author's conversations with other leading participants.

1
Sources of Messianism and pragmatism

The Bolshevik slogan of the October 1917 revolution was “Down with …!” Relying on the enormous potential for negativity that was present in all their slogans and programmes the Bolsheviks denounced the war, which had cost around two million Russian lives, and the privileges of the Russian nobility and even their right to exist (most of the cultivated land having formerly belonged to them). They also denounced the old Tsarist autocracy that had deprived the majority of the population of their democratic rights (including the Russian bourgeoisie which had not yet managed to devise forms of coexistence and cooperation with the workers), as well as the imperial system of relations between nations and peoples, and the fragile quasi-democratic government.

These extreme and radical slogans, uttered in extreme circumstances, appealed to reason and to the heart. Bolshevik propaganda and agitation made people dizzy: “Peace for the people, land for the peasants, bread for the hungry, factories for the workers!” The Declaration of Rights of the Peoples of Russia, adopted on 2 November 1917, proclaimed

1. The equality and sovereignty of the peoples of Russia;
2. The right of the peoples of Russia to free self-determination up to and including secession and formation of independent states;
3. The abolition of all national and national-religious privileges and restrictions;
4. The free development of the national minorities and ethnographical (i.e., ethnic – A.V.) groups inhabiting the territory of Russia.¹

None of the points in the Declaration remained inviolate during the Soviet years. Yet there is no question as to the attractiveness of the document both inside and outside the country during those revolutionary days. The same tone characterized the appeal addressed “To All the Working Muslims of Russia and the East”, adopted on 20 December 1917 and signed by V. I. Lenin. The document said that the Arabs as well as all Muslims had the right to be the masters of their country and to decide their own destiny as they wished.²

As to the exhausted and embittered population, the Bolsheviks brought them a messianic concept of salvation, of God’s kingdom on earth, with a new, previously unknown and mysterious name – “socialism” or “communism”. An ideal society of freedom, equality, justice, well-being and love was at hand. One had simply to follow the Bolsheviks and trust them. A total rejection of the old – power, property, law, morals and religion – allowed for everything to be razed to the ground by all possible means. The earlier civilization, and indeed human lives themselves, were regarded at best as the materials for building a wall that would surround a beautiful sweet-smelling communist-society garden, and at worst as a fertiliser for that garden. But although none of these “professional revolutionaries” – i.e. the destroyers (who were quite skilful destroyers, as was discovered subsequently) – ever knew what kind of new society they were going to build and how it was going to be done, decades of stability enabled them to prove new and unprecedented forms of statehood and party dictatorship, as well as their own tenacious self-preservation and self-reproduction, and their ability to find themselves a social base first in the working class and then among the lumpenproletariat (or the “marginals” as they are now called in the Third World).

The entire multi-layered and far-reaching propaganda network with the new messianic idea at its core, together with the apparatus for reprisals, became a necessary and integral part of the system. Communist ideology, from Marxist-Leninist theory to newspaper and radio propaganda, not only held particular blocks of the system in place but also bound together people who needed a new religion and a new faith by whose lofty ideals they could justify their own or other people’s behaviour as well as their own or other people’s sufferings and even crimes.

These ideals, or rather the magic of sounds and words, charmed several generations of Soviet people and particularly captivated the new intelligentsia and left-wing intellectuals in the West and the ‘fighters for national liberation’ in the East. “The manifestos of the newly-born state were quite new for humanity”, wrote the Egyptian historian al-Shafii many years later.

“Peace among nations! Workers of all lands, unite! Colonial peoples, free yourselves! We render moral and material support to all who wish to be free …” For the first time in history a great power appeared which did not wish to colonise, occupy or exploit anyone but which sided with the forces of liberation around the world. This new state offered to help Saad Zaghlul with arms but he took fright and refused.³

Indeed local organizations that actually used the Russian term “Soviets” appeared during the period of revolutionary development in Egypt in 1919.

The ideals that were propagated were separate from the realities of Soviet society but this was of little concern to the proponents of socialism in the West or the “fighters for national liberation” in the East. First, the majority of “friends of the USSR” simply did not know the truth; they were fed either with propaganda or with specially selected information, either genuine or forged. Second, they did not want to know the truth because they only needed ideas, slogans and “examples” to reinforce their own political behaviour or attitudes. Third, from their point of view, the Russians and other nationalities of the USSR suffered for the sake of a brighter future for humanity, and in any case Messianic ideas demand sacrifices that are quite justifiable especially when they are not yours. Fourth, the main point was the USSR’s behaviour in the international arena, which was supported when it converged with the interests, goals and struggles both of the revolutionaries of all complexions in the West and the East and of the new political elites which came to power in certain countries.

The Bolsheviks who took power in Russia neither knew nor understood the East. The experience acquired by some of the leaders of the October Revolution who had worked in the Muslim areas of the Volga and the Transcaucasian regions proved to be an entirely inadequate basis for any serious analysis of situations, trends and socio-political developments in the East at the time. Mired in incompetence and dogmatism they attempted to adjust the highly complex realities of the Asian and African countries to fit Marxist slogans and “theories”. After the Revolution and until the 1990s most of the politically important studies by Soviet experts on the East were compiled from the research of Western scholars, larded with Marxist-Leninist phraseology.

Why did this not function as an obstacle to the long-term effectiveness of some Bolshevik slogans, taken separately or combined into a “scientific theory”? Social truths, like scientific or poetic discoveries, are perceived either by way of thorough analysis, research and synthesis of facts and comparison of arguments, or by way of a revelation, a sudden penetration into the heart of the problem and into the ways by which it can be solved. For the Bolsheviks their denouncement of the entire previous world order, including the colonial system and the political dependence of some countries upon others, was just such a revelation. From today’s vantage point it is all too easy to criticize Lenin’s theory of imperialism, and there are numerous arguments proving that the colonial system that was described in the writings of Hilferding and Hobson and on which Lenin based his ideas was actually a more complex phenomenon. But what is important is the political conclusion drawn from these premises: denouncement, and a call for destruction, i.e. for a revolutionary smashing of the world order according to which one nation deprives another of political independence or sharply limits it. From this we arrive at a practical conclusion: the recognition of the legality of and support for all forms of struggle against the colonial and semi-colonial systems, for national liberation, for the rights of nations to self-determination and for their political independence.

Irrespective of nuances, this approach meant that up to a certain point Lenin and his followers had been following a path which coincided with the advance of the historical process in the East, including the Near and Middle East. Their slogans had, fully or in part, served the political struggles of the leaders of the national liberation movement, especially of the most radical wing, and also of the people at large. It also meant that the leaders of Great Britain and France, having perceived their victory over Germany and its allies in World War I as a means of legitimizing their colonial empires in the Near and Middle East, were going against the stream of history, against the growing demands for political independence.

Before the revolution of October 1917 Lenin wrote that the duty of socialists was to support the struggle of oppressed peoples for their complete national emancipation “in whatever form, right down to an uprising or war”.⁴ It was only 40 years later that the leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (hereafter CPSU) began to talk of preferring peaceful methods of struggle. In Lenin’s opinion Soviet Russia had to base its relations with the young states “on a complete break with the barbarous policy of bourgeois civilisation which has built up the prosperity of the exploiters, who belong to a few chosen nations, through the enslavement of hundreds of millions of working people in Asia, in colonies in general, and in small countries”.⁵ Thus the thesis had already been voiced about the need for an “alliance” between the “victorious proletariat” of the Soviet Russia (i.e. the Bolsheviks and their leadership), and the “oppressed peoples of the East” in their opposition to “imperialism” (i.e. the West).

Lenin was convinced that the ruling classes of Western Europe drew their wealth from the exploitation of their colonies, and since these classes were the main opponents of the Bolsheviks it was necessary to find some method of weakening their positions and, in particular, of depriving them of their colonies. It is curious that among 21 of the terms of admission in the Comintern elaborated by Lenin, there was one which said that a party willing to belong to the Third International “must ruthlessly expose the colonial machinations of the imperialists of its ‘own’ country, must support – in deed, not merely in word – every colonial liberation movement, must demand the expulsion of its compatriot imperialists from the colonies”.⁶ For Lenin, the attitude of every individual communist party to the national liberation movement was a major proof of its loyalty to the principles of “proletarian internationalism” – in other words, was proof of its devotion to Soviet Russia, or more precisely to the Bolshevik party which had captured power there, and even more precisely to its leadership.

The actual idea of a “hostile environment” was born during the years of civil war and foreign invasion. There were enemies on the other side of the frontier or of the front line, yet they had to be swept away by the proletarian revolution, i.e. by German, French and British Bolsheviks. The apocalyptic vision of the world as defined by the Soviet leadership was of an epoch of civil war that would be waged by the proletariat against the bourgeoisie in the advanced capitalist countries, combined with the national liberation movement of the oppressed nations: “the socialist revolution,” wrote Lenin, “will not be solely or chiefly a struggle of the revolutionary proletarians in each country against their bourgeoisie; no, it will be a struggle of all imperialist-oppressed colonies and countries, of all dependent countries against international imperialism”.⁷

The nationalist-liberation movement had, in the opinion of Soviet Russia’s leaders, to undermine the deepest foundations of imperialism so that, as a consequence, the latter would lose profitable spheres for the application of capital, huge human reserves, minerals, and strategically, important territories. Imperialism would be deprived of essential sources for the super-profits gained from exploiting its colonies, its foreign markets would shrink, and the possibility of bribing the upper crust of the working class in the metropolitan countries would decrease sharply; this would create favourable conditions for the struggle of the proletariat in the capitalist countries and would thus exacerbate class contradictions within them. Naturally, neither facts nor figures were quoted to confirm the supposed role of the West’s colonial periphery – but they were not required. The “victorious proletariat” of Soviet Russia needed an ally, and if it did not exist it had to be invented. When the reality was somehow incompatible with the concocted picture of the world or ran counter to certain tenets of Marxist theory – which in particular denounced nationalism in favour of “proletarian internationalism” – there were various explanations to hand. “The bourgeois nationalism of any oppressed nation”, remarked Lenin, “has a general democratic content that is directed against oppression and it is this content that we unconditionally support”.⁸

A certain feedback was presupposed and propagated: the successes of the national liberation movement depended on the successes of Soviet Russia and of the proletariat of the developed countries of the West. The contraposition of Soviet Russia to the West and of the Western proletariat to its own bourgeoisie created favourable conditions for the victory of the liberation struggle of oppressed nations, since it weakened the stature of imperialism, diminished its forces and limited its freedom of action in the colonial and semi-colonial periphery. As Lenin wrote at the time:

Now, as always, we stand and shall continue to stand for the closest association and merging of the class-conscious workers of the advanced countries with the workers, peasants and slaves of all the oppressed countries. We have always advised and shall continue to advise all the oppressed classes in all the oppressed countries, the colonies included, not to separate from us, but to form the closest possible ties and to merge with us.⁹

And in July 1920 he said that world imperialism would fall

when the revolutionary onslaught of the exploited and oppressed workers in each country … merges with the revolutionary onslaught of hundreds of millions of people who have hitherto stood beyond the pale of history.¹⁰

But until imperialism did collapse, “a policy must be pursued that will achieve the closest alliance of all the national and colonial liberation movements with Soviet Russia”,¹¹ a proposal that was not lacking either in precision or in formal logic. The fact that the revolution in the West was rather late in taking place made it even more attractive. The leadership of the Bolshevik party assessed the possibilities in the East – maybe a mass movement would develop there that would ameliorate the situation for the Soviet government which, because of the policy of “war communism”, had been plunged into crisis and was encountering huge difficulties. With this aim in view, and taking into account the material resources available at the time, a really grand performance was staged, the herald of numerous future performances – the congresses of solidarity with the peoples of Asia and Africa during the 1950s to 1980s. “Representatives” from Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Arabia, Syria and Palestine were among the participants, though they represented only themselves or a few small groups of similarly-minded people. However, the apocalyptic tone of the manifesto addressed to the peoples of the East was compatible with both the irrational and the unfortunate timing of the assembling of the congress, and with the intellectual and cultural level of its participants. “You dogs, you cannot devour the peoples of the East! You, a miserable handful of oppressors, cannot turn millions of Eastern peasants and workers into your slaves for centuries to come”, declaimed the authors of the manifesto, addressing themselves to English capitalists and to the ruling circles of Great Britain. “You have snatched at too big a bite. It is not for your teeth, and you will be choked by it!” The manifesto ended with an appeal to the oppressed peoples of the East “to start a holy war for an independent life and happiness for all the peoples of the East, and for the many millions of its peasants and workers oppressed by Britain”.¹²

Lenin regarded the work of the Congress of the Peoples of the East highly, saying in a speech given on 15 October 1920:

That which was achiev...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1 Sources of Messianism and pragmatism
• 2 The rise and fall of Nikita S. Khrushchev
• 3 Up the down staircase: the era of Leonid Brezhnev
• 4 “Ardent revolutionaries, loyal friends”; the USSR and the Communist movement
• 5 An exotic flower of Arabia
• 6 Through the looking glass, or the decision-making process
• 7 Afghanistan: Russia’s unhealed wound
• 8 Messianism in decline: the time of Mikhail Gorbachev
• 9 Foreign policy and domestic policy: the USSR, Israel and the Palestinians
• 10 Storms in alien deserts
• 11 Cursed Nineties
• 12 To return, but how?
• 13 The children devour their revolutions
• 14 The Syrian tragedy: the birth of the monsters
• 15 The argument of the Aerospace Forces
• Conclusion
• Index